The mediating effects of learnability and interaction on the perceived usability of smartphone applications

Abstract

Even though the smartphone applications bring versatility into our lives, they are still considered to be less usable than the PC. This is mainly due to limitations in the hardware, especially the small display of the smartphones compared to the PC. Furthermore, applications are growing along with the addition of more functions and information. Generally, complicated applications are more difficult to learn how to use and to interact with. Thus, these conditions and circumstances bring challenges for the applications in terms of the usable user interface (UI). A comprehensive IS literature review found that there are few empirical researches on the effect of UI design on the perceived usability of applications in the context of smartphone. Thus, the main research goals of this study are as follows: 1) to examine the effects of UI design on the learnability of smartphone applications and the interaction between users and applications, and 2) to find the effects of the learnability and the interaction on the usability of the applications as perceived by users. A survey was conducted to collect data and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the data. The results showed the significant direct effects of UI design on the learnability of applications and the interaction between users and applications. In addition, the results of this study also showed the significant effect of the learnability of applications, as well as the significant impact of the interaction on the usability of the applications as perceived by users. However, there was no significant direct effect of UI design on the perceived usability of applications.